by Betty Neels
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he invited, and for a moment she was tempted to do just that—to tell him how she disliked the idea of going back to Stoke-cum-Muchelney, because she was afraid that she would never get away again, only if she married James. She looked sideways at the man beside her, comparing him with James, who came off very second best. James was already getting thin on top, while her companion had plenty of hair on his handsome head, of a pleasing fairness and elegantly cut; James hadn’t a square chin and his mouth was small and a little thick in the lip. The doctor had a firm, well-shaped mouth and his voice was pleasant too, deep and unhurried, and he didn’t say H’m each time he spoke. The thought that Doctor van den Werff would make the splendid husband of her vague dreams crossed her mind, to be dismissed immediately. He was a complete stranger—well, almost complete; she knew nothing about him, and, she told herself firmly, she didn’t intend to. In a couple of days’ time, when the nurse arrived and he could contact the doctor, he would go, and so would she, both to their respective worlds.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she replied with a cool politeness which wasn’t lost on him, for he said instantly, ‘Ah, yes—not my business, eh?’
He let go of her arm and stopped to scoop some snow into his gloved hand, looking at her and laughing as he did so, and she, guessing that the snowball was meant for her, made haste to dodge it, a difficult task with the boots hampering her every step. It would have been silly not to have defended herself, which she did with some success, for he was a large target and although quick on his feet, not quick enough. She tossed the snow at him with all the pleasure of a small child, laughing and shouting and momentarily forgetful of her prosaic future. Presently, still laughing and panting from their exercise, they turned back to the house.
The rest of the day seemed a little dull after that. Julia, her hair tidied once more and crowned with its nurse’s cap, returned to her patient, her pink cheeks and sparkling eyes belying the extreme neatness of her person, a fact which Bert and Willy duly remarked upon when she saw them. They had been discussing her, she sensed, as she entered the room, and they made no attempt to hide the fact from her, for Bert said at once,
‘We were wondering, Willy and me, if we ought ter go—it don’t seem right, leaving you alone. Yer don’t mind staying—just with the doc, I mean?’
Julia smiled very nicely at him. ‘No,’ she said gently, ‘I don’t mind, Bert. In fact I shall feel quite safe.’
“E seems a nice sort of fellow,’ said Willy, ‘even though ‘e is a foreigner.’ He got up and went to the door. ‘If yer’re quite happy about it, Nurse?’
She answered him seriously. ‘If I weren’t, Willy, I should have asked you both to stay. What time do you expect to leave in the morning?’ She frowned. ‘I must write to Sister…’
‘Eight o’clock or thereabouts. We’ll go back the way we came, though the Carlisle road isn’t all that far, but it wouldn’t be easy to reach. The doc says he’ll come a bit of the way with us, just in case we get stuck. We’re going to ring Miss Mary’s doctor for him too, so’s ‘e can come over just as soon as the road’s clear. Doc’s written it all down for us. I’m to tell ‘im you’re ‘ere as well.’
Julia said uncertainly, ‘Oh, are you? I never thought of that.’ Nor had she. It seemed Doctor van den Werff had taken the welfare of his fellows very much to heart; she felt pretty certain that when the time came, he would arrange for her departure, buy her ticket and see that she had enough money for necessities on the journey back. Which reminded her, she had a little money with her, but not nearly enough to take her back to London. She would have to borrow, and from the doctor, for it was unthinkable to ask her patient for it and the old retainer was equally impossible. The family doctor might be of help, but she disliked asking for a loan from a stranger. That Doctor van den Werff was a stranger too had for the moment escaped her.
Mary woke up and Julia, who had been standing idly by the window, went to draw up the penicillin before getting her patient’s tea and then, when the doctor obligingly said the he would sit with Mary, went down to the vast kitchen to get supper for the rest of them.
She was up early the next morning making sandwiches for the two ambulance men and filling the thermos and then cooking as generous a breakfast as she dared for them. The food was getting a bit low by now, although she would be able to go on making bread for some time, and there were plenty of potatoes, but there was Mary to think of, for as soon as she had recovered from her broncho-pneumonia she would want to eat again. Julia had set aside as much as possible for her, which meant that she and the doctor and Hamish would have to make do with a restricted though ample enough diet.
The morning was a mere glimmer at the end of the long night when she went to the door to see the men off. They wrung her hand, took the letter she had written and trudged through the frozen snow towards the stable. The doctor followed them. He had hardly spoken during breakfast, but now he paused at the door. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said cheerfully, ‘but don’t worry if I don’t turn up until later in the day—we might get held up with the drifts and have to dig ourselves out. If I can get as far as the main road I’ll try and find out what’s happening about the telephone, or get a message into Hawick. The men will telephone there from Newcastle anyway, but I don’t think we should leave any stones unturned, do you?’
Julia asked, ‘Will you be able to telephone your family in Holland? Won’t they be worrying?’ and went faintly pink when he said coolly, ‘Time enough for that, Miss Pennyfeather—we have to get you settled first, don’t we?’
He grinned suddenly, turned on his heel and set out into the icy morning.
The house was very quiet when they had gone. She had listened to them starting up the ambulance and then the car and, minutes later, their horns blaring a goodbye to her as the noise of the engines became fainter and fainter and then ceased altogether, leaving her lonely.
But there wasn’t much time for loneliness; there was Mary to see to and the rooms to tidy and the food cupboard to be frowned over once more. Hamish had brought in some more eggs, but everything else was getting on the low side, though there was plenty if someone arrived that evening and brought food with them, but Julia had looked out of the window as soon as it was light and had been disquieted by the grey sky with its ominous yellow tinges streaking the horizon, and the wind was getting up again as well. She went back to Mary’s room and built up a magnificent fire as though by so doing she could ward off the bad weather she guessed was coming.
The wind began to whine in real earnest about three o’clock and the first snowflakes whirled down, slowly and daintily at first and then in real earnest. It didn’t look as though the nurse would arrive that day, nor the cook and the maid, nor, for that matter, thought Julia gloomily, Doctor van den Werff. He was probably stuck in some drift miles from anywhere; she was thankful that she had made him take some sandwiches and a thermos too.
She took Mary’s tea up presently, to find her awake and more cheerful, and she was still with her when she heard the car return. It was dark outside and the fast falling snow almost obliterated its headlights as it went past the house in the direction of the stables. Julia left Mary to finish her tea and went downstairs, her cape held close against the draughts, and reached the kitchen as the doctor came in from outside, bringing a rush of cold air in with him.
Julia went to the stove and opened one of the plates so that the singing kettle could boil. ‘I thought you’d never get here,’ she said, trying to make her voice light.
The doctor took off his coat and shook a quantity of snow from it on to the floor, then hung it on the back of a chair where it began to steam. Only then did he speak, and the extreme placidity of his voice annoyed her.
‘My dear Miss Pennyfeather,’ he remarked, ‘I told you that I should come,’ which calm and brief speech caused her to burst out, ‘Well, I know you did, but sitting here waiting for you isn’t the same…’
‘Waiting for me, were you? I’m flattered—at least I should have been in any other circumstances. Unfortunately the telephone wires are still down—I wasted a great deal of time. Still, the snow ploughs have been out on the main road.’ He sat down at the table and she realised that this meagre information was all she was going to get about his day. She poured him some tea from the pot she had just made and offered him bread and jam.
‘Is the weather very bad?’ she wanted to know.
‘Quite nasty, but I don’t fancy it’s going to last. Has everything been all right here?’ He glanced at Hamish, who nodded before Julia could answer. ‘Aye, the fires are lit, and there’s plenty of wood. I’ll kill a chicken tomorrow.’
The doctor nodded. ‘Good idea—otherwise I’ll have to go out with a gun.’
‘What,’ said Julia indignantly, ‘and shoot any small creature, half-starved and frozen?’
He didn’t laugh at her. ‘I shouldn’t enjoy it,’ he said gently, ‘but we have to eat. But don’t worry, if Hamish here lets us have a chicken we’ll do very well for a couple of days—Mary can have it too.’
Julia agreed, wondering the while what Mary’s mother would say when she arrived home and found no food in the cupboards and several beds in use. But of course they would all be gone by then and she herself would never know, she would be in Somerset and this strange adventure would be a dream—so would the doctor. She sighed and got up to refill the teapot.
She had tucked Mary up for the night and had gone to her room to sit by the fire before beginning the chilly business of undressing when there was a knock on the door and the doctor came in.
‘Mary?’ asked Julia as she started to her feet.
‘No—she’s asleep, I’ve just been to look. I want to talk to you and your room is warmer than mine—do you mind if I come in?’
Julia felt surprise, pleasure and finally a faint excitement which she firmly suppressed. She sat down again. ‘There’s a chair in that corner, it’s larger than the others,’ she said sensibly.
His lips twitched, but he went obediently and fetched it, sat down opposite her and began without preamble.
‘The reason I was going to London before returning to Holland was in order that I might engage a nurse to take back with me. There is a young lady staying with my family—an English girl who contracted polio just before I came over to Edinburgh. She went to hospital, of course, but now she is back with us, but I hear that she is very bored with only my sister to talk to, for she doesn’t care to learn Dutch. She’s convalescent and has made a splendid recovery which I feel could be hastened even more by having someone with her to whom she could talk freely.’
He paused and looked across at Julia, his eyebrows lifted in an unspoken question.
‘Me?’ asked Julia, and felt a pleasant tingle of excitement.
‘Yes—it would save me hunting around in London, and I think that you may suit admirably. You are very much of an age and capable with it. If you could see your way to coming for a few weeks? I know it is sudden, but I fancy you wouldn’t mind overmuch if you didn’t go to your brother’s. Am I right?’
‘Yes—I don’t want to go in the least,’ she said bluntly, ‘but I really should.’
‘Forgive me, but is your brother not able to afford a nurse for his wife, or help of some sort?’
She flushed. ‘Yes, of course he can, only I expect he feels it’s a waste of money to pay someone when there’s me.’
‘So you would have no feeling of—er—guilt if you were not to go?’
Julia was a little surprised to find that she didn’t feel in the least guilty. She said briefly, ‘No.’
‘Then, Miss Pennyfeather, will you come? I know this is a most irregular way of offering a job, but in the rather peculiar circumstances in which we find ourselves…you trust me?’
Julia looked startled. ‘Trust you? Of course I trust you.’ Her voice sounded as startled as her face. ‘I hope I shall suit your patient.’
She hoped that he might give her a few more details, but it seemed that he didn’t intend doing so, not at that moment anyway, for he went on to ask her if she had a passport and would she mind being out of England for Christmas.
She said a little breathlessly, for she was still surprised at herself for her rash acceptance of a job she knew nothing about, ‘Yes—I’ve a passport, it’s with my things in London. I’ve never been out of England at Christmas time, but I don’t suppose I shall mind.’
‘No? I daresay you’ll find it much the same as in England. We have the same family gatherings, but I don’t think we put quite such emphasis on presents. We have St Nikolaas, you see, earlier in the month.’
She nodded, having only a slight inkling of what he was talking about. She had heard of St Nikolaas, naturally, and she knew all about his white horse and Black Peter, but that was already over and done with; it was almost Christmas. A Christmas she might enjoy much more than if she went to her brother’s.
His voice cut through her thoughts with a gentle persistence she couldn’t ignore. ‘If I might have your attention, Miss Pennyfeather? We shall have to stay here until such time as the nurse, the doctor and the servants arrive, then I propose to drive down to London where you can collect your clothes and whatever else you want. We can cross from Harwich when it suits us and drive home from there.’
Julia watched him put another log on the fire. ‘I don’t know where you live.’
‘Near Tilburg, a small town called Oisterwijk. I work at the hospital in Tilburg—I’m an anaesthetist. I also go once a week to Breda and s’Hertogenbosch and occasionally to Eindhoven. My father has a practice in which I am a partner and when he retires I shall take it over. My sister runs the household and I have two brothers younger than I—one is married, the youngest is still finishing his post-graduate course at a Utrecht hospital.’
‘And my patient?’
He gave her a sharp glance and took so long in replying that she thought that probably he was deciding what to tell her. ‘Miss Marcia Jason,’ he said at length, ‘who was staying with us when she was taken ill. We are all very fond of her, and to get her completely well again is our dearest wish.’
Julia ignored the pang she felt at his words, for she suspected that it had something to do with the doctor being fond of his patient… It was extremely foolish of her to get interested in him. She told herself that it was only because they had been thrown together in trying circumstances that she felt…she decided not to pursue her train of thought and looked up to see the doctor regarding her steadily. ‘And now,’ he invited, ‘tell me something of yourself.’
To her surprise she did, although she hadn’t really meant to. Out it all came, her brother and Maureen and her home and how lovely the garden was in the summer and how awful London was if you hadn’t anywhere to go—and James. He didn’t speak, just sat and listened as she enlarged upon James and his tedious perfections. ‘He’s s-so right always,’ she ended, ‘and so dreadfully patient and good when I lose my temper. He says I’ll be better when we settle down: But I don’t want to settle down—not with him.’
‘Have you anyone in mind?’ queried her companion mildly.
She said uncertainly, ‘No—oh, no,’ and knew in her heart that it wasn’t quite true. James and Maureen and her brother too had told her a great many times that there was no such thing as love at first sight; love came gradually, they had explained patiently, and Julia, an unwilling listener, had considered that it all sounded rather dull. She had said so, passionately, and they had smiled at her with pitying coolness. She said now, ‘I shouldn’t have said all that about James.’ She gave the doctor a direct look. ‘It was disloyal.’
He smiled nicely. ‘No. As far as I can judge, you owe this James nothing, and you can be sure that I’ll forget everything about the tiresome fellow, and I suggest that you do too, otherwise you’ll find yourself living in a semi-detached with a great deal to do and a string of babies.’
‘But I like bab
ies!’
He closed his eyes. ‘So do I, Miss Pennyfeather. How delightful that we agree upon such an important aspect of life. If we persevere we shall undoubtedly find other things just as important.’
Julia stared at him, her lovely eyes wide. As though it mattered if they agreed about anything! The fewer things the better, she was inclined to think, bearing in mind Miss Marcia Jason…
‘Is she pretty?’ she asked suddenly. The doctor looked as though he was laughing silently, but he had that sort of face, anyway.
‘Very,’ he answered without hesitation, ‘small and fair, with large blue eyes. She has an extremely intelligent brain.’
‘Has the polio affected her badly?’
‘Luckily the damage is slight. It’s a question of constant encouragement, that’s why I thought a nurse, someone sensible and her own age, would give her the stimulus she needs for the last few weeks of convalescence.’
Julia nodded while she seethed. She had had her share of men friends, none of whom had ever called her sensible in that matter-of-fact voice. She gave him a cross look and went scarlet when he added, ‘Not that being sensible is your only attribute, my dear young lady, but it is the only one which applies in this case, I think.’ He got up, taking his time, and at the door he said, ‘Let us pray for good weather so that we may get away from here as soon as possible; I have never suffered so many draughts. Goodnight, Miss Pennyfeather.’
It snowed again the next day, but late in the afternoon the weathered cleared and at teatime Hamish offered the information that the worst was over, and neither Julia nor Doctor van den Werff thought to question his pronouncement, for after all, he had lived in the Border country all his life, and he should know. As if to bear him out the radio in the doctor’s car proclaimed exactly the same state of affairs, if in somewhat more elaborate language, adding a rider to the effect that telephone communications were being reinstated as quickly as possible. But the telephone at Drumlochie House remained silent and no one arrived, which wasn’t surprising, for the snow plough hadn’t got so far.